Tide of December

The biting December air tasted of exhaust fumes and wet grit, a distinctly urban winter flavour. It clung to the back of my throat, sharp and metallic. I shoved my hands deeper into the pockets of my parka, the thick fabric doing little against the persistent chill that seemed to seep into my very bones. The city centre, or what was left of it, pulsed with an almost desperate luminescence. Christmas lights, a dazzling, almost blinding array of them, were strung across every lamppost, every hastily repaired building façade. Crimson and gold, sapphire and emerald, they flickered in the dusk, reflecting off the slick, rain-damp pavements. A hopeful display, they called it. A sign of things turning, a new dawn after years of the kind of quiet that ate at a man’s insides.

My gaze drifted past the throng of people, past the cheerful, if somewhat forced, laughter, past the vendor hawking roasted chestnuts — the sweet, smoky scent a jarring counterpoint to the metallic tang in the air. My eyes snagged on the distant outline of the old communications tower, half-erect, a skeletal, scarred monument on the city’s northern edge. It was supposed to be decommissioned, dismantled. Yet, tonight, something was off. A faint, rhythmic pulse of light, not part of the city grid, not a reflection. It was subtle, barely perceptible, a quickening wink of something deep within its rusted frame, a faint blue against the deepening violet of the sky.

I narrowed my eyes. My vision wasn't what it used to be. Too many blown fuses in too many dark places. Too much staring into the wrong kind of light. Probably just a trick of the city’s bleed, I told myself, the way distant lights could play on the optic nerve. A phantom. It had been years since I'd needed to track anything like that, years since that specific kind of alertness was anything but a liability. Still, the rhythm held. A beat, a brief flash, then darkness, then another beat. Insistent, quiet. Like a forgotten heart trying to remember how to pump.

A small, almost imperceptible tremor ran through my hand, my fingers clenching automatically around nothing inside my pocket. Old habits. Always looking for the thing that didn’t fit, the detail that sang a different song. I tried to shake it off, to immerse myself in the cheerful cacophony. A group of teenagers, bundled in oversized scarves, laughed too loudly nearby, their breath pluming white in the cold air. They were pointing at a massive inflatable Santa Claus that seemed precariously balanced on the roof of a rebuilt bank. Their joy felt… genuine. Unburdened. It was good to see.

But the tower. The pulse. It pulled at the corner of my vision, a nagging itch behind my eye. I let out a breath, a ragged plume that vanished instantly. Had I ever really stopped looking for the threat? Even now, with the ceasefires holding, the reconstruction humming, the public declarations of 'peace and prosperity' echoing from every news outlet. It was a comfortable lie, one I was more than willing to believe, most days. But some days, like this one, the old wiring sparked, reminding me of all the things that could still go wrong. All the ways a fragile calm could shatter.

Echoes in the Crowd

I pulled myself away from the hypnotic, unsettling rhythm of the tower's distant flicker, my boots thudding softly on the icy pavement. The crunch of frost-laced gravel beneath a woman's heels nearby pulled me back to the immediate, tangible world. She was struggling with a box of decorations, its bright paper tearing at the corner. I almost offered to help, then thought better of it. Civilian life. Not my lane anymore. Or maybe, I still hadn't figured out what my lane was. I felt like a ghost, sometimes, drifting through this new, brightly lit city, a relic from a time most people were desperate to forget.

A hand clapped me on the shoulder, firm but not aggressive. "Miller! You look like you're trying to calculate the trajectory of that star on the tree, mate." It was Eliza. Her smile, as always, was a bright splash of warmth in the grey urban landscape. She wore a thick woollen coat, a flash of red scarf beneath her chin, and her eyes, even in the dimming light, held that familiar glint of wry humour. She’d been my CO, once. Now, she managed a logistics firm, helping rebuild infrastructure. A different kind of fight, she’d called it.

"Just admiring the sheer… ambition of it all," I replied, gesturing vaguely towards the glittering centrepiece tree that dominated the city square. It hovered, a confection of LED lights and oversized baubles, reaching for the low, bruised clouds. "Seems like a lot of effort for a few weeks' cheer." My voice was rougher than I intended. The cold, I told myself. Always the cold.

Eliza chuckled, a low, easy sound. "That's the point, isn't it? To show we can. To show we're past… that." She didn’t need to say ‘the war’. We never did. It hung in the air between us, a shared phantom limb. Her gaze softened, a hint of something deeper there. "You alright? You've got that thousand-yard stare again." She poked me lightly in the arm, a familiar gesture.

I grunted, pushing a stray strand of hair away from my face. "Just… adjusting. To all the colour." It was a weak deflection, and we both knew it. But we also knew not to push too hard. We'd seen enough of what happened when the walls came down too fast. The city lights seemed to intensify around us, blurring at the edges, a deliberate attempt to outshine the darkness, both outside and in.

"It is a bit much," Eliza conceded, her head tilted slightly, assessing the twinkling chaos. "But it's good, Miller. People need this. A promise. A reason to look up, instead of over their shoulder." She shifted her weight, stamping her feet slightly against the cold. Her breath plumed in rhythm with mine. There was a genuine, quiet strength in her, a bedrock I'd always admired. She truly believed in the rebuilding, in the hopeful future. Sometimes, I envied her that clarity.

"A promise," I repeated, the word tasting like ash in my mouth. Promises, in our line of work, had a nasty habit of breaking. Especially the unspoken ones. I felt the specific cold of the metal railing against my gloved hand as I leaned against it, the vibration from a passing tram humming through the frozen steel. The world was full of promises, and full of their wreckage. I caught a glimpse of the tower again, its blue pulse a faint, insistent counterpoint to the city's festive roar. It was still there. Still pulsing.

Daniel appeared then, practically materialising out of the crowd, his face flushed with excitement, eyes bright. He was barely out of his teens when he joined our unit, still a boy, really, fresh-faced and eager. Now, he worked on the city's power grid, a crucial piece of the reconstruction. "Eliza! Miller! Have you seen the new projection on the old Civic building? It's incredible! Reindeer flying across the façade, like it's actually moving!" He gestured wildly, almost knocking a woman's shopping bag.

"Careful, soldier," Eliza admonished gently, a smile playing on her lips. "Don't flatten a civilian." Her tone was light, but there was an edge to it. A reminder of discipline, even in peacetime. Or what passed for it.

Daniel grinned, unperturbed. "Right, sorry. But seriously, it's a triumph. Everything's working so much better now. The grid's stable, almost zero outages. We're ahead of schedule for phase three reconstruction. Everyone's talking about the New Year, about how this is finally it. The turning point." He bounced on the balls of his feet, radiating a boundless, almost naive enthusiasm that was both infectious and, to me, slightly unsettling.

"Ahead of schedule is good," I said, my voice flat. "But 'finally it'… that's a big claim." I watched his face, young and earnest, devoid of the deeper lines that etched Eliza’s features, or the permanent shadow that lived behind my own eyes. He hadn't seen enough yet. Hadn't learned the hard lessons. I rubbed the back of my neck, where an old scar sometimes ached in the cold. It was a habit, a subconscious check.

Daniel’s smile faltered slightly. "Well, yeah. But… everyone's saying it. The broadcasts, the mayor, even the guys on site. No more… surprises." He looked at Eliza, as if for confirmation, for reassurance. He still looked to us for answers, even now, years later, when the war was officially 'over.'

Eliza caught my eye, a shared, silent language passing between us. A complex mix of weariness, hope, and understanding. "It's a different kind of fight now, Daniel," she said, her voice gentle, but firm. "Against cynicism. Against forgetting. What we're building, it's not just brick and mortar. It's belief." She put a hand on Daniel's shoulder, a gesture of comfort, of mentorship. He visibly relaxed under her touch.

I looked away, back towards the northern edge of the city. The tower. The flicker. It wasn't fading. If anything, it seemed sharper, more distinct now against the deepening blue-black of the sky. A methodical, unnatural pulse. Not random. Not a malfunction. It felt… intentional. A cold prickle traced its way down my spine, a sensation I hadn't felt in months, not since the last time I’d had to clear a sector after a false all-clear.

"I think I'll take a walk," I said, abruptly. My voice cut through the hopeful chatter, a little too sharp, a little too loud. Both Eliza and Daniel looked at me. Daniel’s brow furrowed, a flicker of concern in his eyes. Eliza just studied me, her gaze unreadable. She knew me too well.

"Where to?" she asked, her voice low, casual. But her eyes were intense, assessing. She was trying to read the subtext of my sudden departure, looking for the tell. And I knew she’d find it.

"Just… towards the river," I replied, vague. "Need to clear my head. Too many damn lights." It was a plausible lie, enough for Daniel, perhaps. Not for Eliza. But she didn't press. She never did. She gave me space. Another reason I respected her so much.

"Don't get lost," she said, a hint of a smile returning, but her eyes held a serious message. A warning. Or perhaps, an acknowledgement. I gave her a curt nod, then turned, threading my way through the buoyant crowd. The smell of burning copper, faint but distinct, mingled with the festive scents of pine and roasted nuts, a detail only I seemed to notice. It was a smell I associated with short circuits, with improvised explosives, with things going very, very wrong.

My steps were deliberate, my senses heightened. The noise of the crowd, the cheerful music spilling from the shops, all began to recede, replaced by a low thrum beneath my feet, the city’s unseen machinery. The blue flicker from the tower, though still distant, began to feel less like an optical illusion and more like a deliberate signal. My mind, usually a chaotic archive of sensory data and tactical analysis, cleared into a singular, sharp focus.

Under the Silent Watch

The further I walked, the thinner the crowds became, the quieter the air. The bright, hopeful glow of the city centre receded behind me, replaced by the colder, harsher illumination of streetlamps casting long, skeletal shadows. My pace quickened. It wasn’t a walk anymore. It was a patrol, a quiet, almost unconscious shift back into an old rhythm. My shoulders felt tense, my jaw tight. The constant, subtle ache in my right knee, a souvenir from a collapsed building, throbbed with renewed intensity. The cold gnawed at my ears, but I barely registered it.

The river lay ahead, its dark surface reflecting the scattered, colder lights of the industrial district. Beyond it, the tower stood stark against the sky, a broken tooth in the city’s mouth. The blue pulse was undeniably clearer now. A steady, deliberate beat, perhaps three seconds on, one second off. It was almost too regular. Too perfect to be random interference. It felt like a heartbeat, or a coded message, delivered by someone who knew exactly what they were doing, and to whom.

I found myself scanning the deserted waterfront, my eyes automatically searching for anything out of place: a discarded cigarette butt still faintly glowing, a fresh boot print in the thin layer of ice near the water's edge, a glint of metal that wasn't a reflection. The smell of wet asphalt and river water, heavy and earthy, filled my nostrils. The silence was profound here, broken only by the distant hum of the city and the soft lapping of the water against the concrete embankment.

My comms unit, an old, battered piece of kit I’d kept more out of habit than necessity, felt heavy in my pocket. It hadn’t picked up anything unusual since the ceasefire, just static and the occasional rogue signal from civilian bandwidths. But now, I felt a strange urge to power it on, to see if it would register anything, any faint, almost imperceptible frequency that matched the visual pulse. It was an irrational thought. But in my line of work, the irrational thoughts were often the ones that saved your life, or took it.

I stopped at the edge of the river, looking across the dark expanse of water. The tower pulsed, an electric blue eye staring back at me. It felt like it was speaking, a silent, urgent language meant only for me, for anyone who still knew how to listen. The festive lights of the city behind me felt distant, a beautiful, fragile shield against a world that was still very much broken, still capable of hiding its dangers beneath layers of tinsel and cheer. This wasn't a natural light. This was a message. And I had a sickening feeling I knew exactly what kind of message it was.

The air grew colder, if that was possible. A sudden gust of wind, smelling of snow and something else, something metallic and sharp, whipped around me, pulling at my parka. It felt like a warning, or a reminder. The city might be celebrating, might be basking in the glow of a new, hopeful chapter, but the past was never truly buried. It merely lay dormant, waiting for the right signal to awaken. And that blue pulse, rhythmic and unwavering, felt like a very specific kind of alarm. My stomach tightened, a familiar knot of dread unfurling. The peace, this beautiful, hard-won peace, felt thinner than ever. As fragile as a single, glittering ornament on a massive, hopeful tree. And I was standing here, watching the hand that was about to shake it.